Dan Liu

Name: Dan Liu

Gender: Male

Age: 17

Grade: 12

School: Aurora High School

Hobbies and Interests: Basketball (school team), playing the cello, and track (school team).

Appearance: Dan stands at 5’9, weighing in at 155 pounds, putting him right around average. He has short black hair that barely covers the top of his ears. He has dark brown, almond shaped eyes. He has slightly bushy, straight eyebrows. His skin is slightly tan, reflecting his Chinese heritage. It's relatively clear, besides a tendency to develop acne near the hairline. His face is diamond shaped and rather angular, with a pointed chin. His nose is rather small, as are his lips. Dan has a muscular build with little obvious fat. His legs appear to be especially muscular thanks to years of basketball and track.

He dresses simply, usually wearing jeans with a long sleeved t-shirt or hooded sweatshirt in the winter. In the summer he will usually switch to basketball shorts and a t-shirt. The shirts come in a variety of muted colors. They normally come from stores such as American Eagle or Aeropostale, and usually including the logo somewhere on it. He also normally wears his class ring, with a basketball inscribed on one side, and a pelican on the other. It has a synthetic ruby as the stone.

On the day of the trip, Dan was wearing blue basketball shorts with green accents, a plain white t-shirt, and white tennis shoes.

Biography: Dan was born and raised in Seattle, born to Andrew and Xin Liu as an only child. Andrew was the son of immigrants, while Xin had been brought to America when she was seven. Andrew is a banker, and Xin works at an Asian market.

Through elementary school, Dan was very gregarious, getting along well with most of the other children. He joined a youth basketball team in second grade, at the encouragement of his dad to have an extracurricular activity with kids his own age, and his dad encouraged him to keep with the sport. In the fourth grade he started to play the cello in school, enjoying the lower sound without having to stand up, like a bass would require. He enjoyed being a part of the group, and playing in a group, but found playing on his own boring. His parents sent him to private lessons for the first year, but he didn't practice much so they stopped sending him. He's at the lower end of average in terms of skill level, mostly due to his lack of practice. He prefers slow pieces that build to the end.

During middle school, he was relatively popular. He mostly became popular due to his participation on the basketball team. This continues to the present. He tends to make lots of jokes to other guys, although they can sometimes move into the realm of the mean-spirited. This is usually on accident, as he'll try too hard to be funny. These jokes didn't have a negative effect on his popularity due to many people being fine with it as long as it wasn't directed at them. With girls, he tends to be more reserved and makes sure to be respectful.

In middle school he was on the school's basketball and track teams. In basketball, in the small forward position, he mainly used his speed to get in and make quick two-pointers. He normally did very well in the first half of the game, but would tire in the second half. This caused him to be rotated in and out a lot more in the second half, making him a slightly better than average player overall. In track, he normally competed in quick sprinting events, not having the endurance to do well in longer races. His usual events were the 100 and 200 meter dashes. He did very well in those events, normally being among the top runners in the meets. He did take part in some of the shorter relay races, but only when one of the usual competitors were unable to participate. This continued to be much the same in high school, with the exception of becoming a regular competitor in the relay races, instead of just filling in.

Now in high school, he’s continued with his sports and playing the cello. Socially, he’s still pretty popular. He tends to hang out with other sporty kids. He started dating as a sophomore, but hasn’t done it too much due to being afraid of rejection. This is mainly due to having relationships that will last awhile, the shortest being two and a half months, and then he'll avoid dating for long periods due to hating breakups. He’ll normally say he’s trying to be respectful by not getting in a girl’s face if she doesn’t seem interested, rather than admitting that he's afraid of being rejected. Part of why he chooses not to put pressure on girls to date him is that he sees women as morally superior and somewhat fragile. Part of the reason for this view is that his mom tends to be more quiet and reserved, compared to his dad who is much more boastful.

Dan gets along pretty well with his parents. He doesn’t have any notable behavior problems and his grades are fine, so there’s rarely any cause for conflict between them. He gets along well with both of his parents. He gets along better with his dad though. This is due to his dad taking more interest in his athletics than his mom does. His dad shows up to almost every game or meet, while his mom only comes to about half of them. His mom doesn't attend all of them due to normally using that time to catch up on cleaning or other housework without Dan or Andrew around. This is normally not an issue to Dan, but he gets disappointed if his mom misses a few games in a row, feeling she isn't interested in his accomplishments. While Dan is often busy with practice or hanging out with friends, he spends a decent amount of time with his parents due to their insistence on having everyone sit at the table for dinner every night.

In terms of schoolwork, Dan does well. He gets mostly As with a few Bs, notably in history classes. This is partly due to a lack of interest, but also due to a lack of study skills. He normally does not have to work as hard in other classes. Other classes come easily to him. Plus, he also chose not to take advanced classes due to not wanting to work as hard. Part of his reasoning for not wanting to work as hard in classes is because of the amount of time he has to put in during basketball and track season. He takes some business classes, such as accounting, as electives. He plans to major in business at the University of Seattle, seeing the degree as something that has widespread need.

Advantages: He’s in shape and is fast, although a prolonged chase would wear him out. He also is pretty popular, which would help with getting and maintaining alliances.

Disadvantages: His tendency to go too far in his joking would lead to some guys as seeing him as hostile. He also has rather inaccurate views on women in thinking they wouldn’t be aggressive. He also tends to slack off some, which could really hurt him if that continued on the island.

Designated Number: Male student No. 061

---

Designated Weapon: Rounder's Bat

Conclusion: Decent draw, not a complete loser... only issue is that with the history of our ladies in this game, I can only see him getting on the wrong side of the latest femme fatale. Remember M61... if you can't slam with the best, you gotta jam with the rest. - Jim Greynolds:

'The above biography is as written by Bacon. No edits or alterations to the author's original work have been made.'

Evaluations
Handled by: Bacon

Kills: None

Killed By: Theodore Fletcher

Collected Weapons:  Rounder's Bat (designated weapon)

Allies:

Enemies:

Mid-game Evaluation:

Post-Game Evaluation:

Memorable Quotes:

Threads
Below is a list of threads that contain Dan, in chronological order.

The Past:

Pre-Game:
 * Pardon the Dust

V5:
 * Sup Nerds?
 * A New World Fool

Your Thoughts
''Whether you were a fellow handler in SOTF or just an avid reader of the site, we'd like to know what you thought about Dan Liu. What did you like, or dislike, about the character? Let us know here!''


 * I'm on the fence here about Dan, largely because in game he only got the benefit of two, somewhat succinct threads. Bearing in mind I didn't read a whole lot of pregame it's tough to have got a lasting impression from him. He was in general solid, and he gets my thumb up for one of the main criterion I look at for deaths; did it make sense, but otherwise I feel a little like he's a case where he was cut off just a bit too soon for his impact to be lasting, which is something of a shame. Don't get me wrong though; I didn't actively dislike Dan, I just thought that he didn't have the opportunity to make himself properly stand out.* - Namira


 * Another death that I can't fairly comment on because I had a hand in it. But I mostly agree with Namira, in that Dan could've done a lot more. He had the makings of a plan and could've gone places, but rolls and hero cards had things to say about that. It's a shame some decent kids got rolled out so quickly, I'd have liked to see where Dan was heading. - Espional
 * What was excellent about Dan was his simlicity. He was very blunt about everything, and also very independent. As Namira and Espional have already said, it's hard to have much opinion about characters who were early outs. However, I can say that while Dan did not live long enough to have much impact on the story, and his short story made make him a less memorable character, his death post was excellent. Bacon's description of Dan fading out of life gave me chills, as well as his final reflections on his encounted with Theo. Dan was very realistic, and while I do wish I could have seen more of him, I think he had a very successful, relatable, brief story.- Nuggets
 * I was anticipating not seeing much out of Dan's characterization based off of the few posts that Bacon had given him. However, after combing through his story, Bacon made the few words that Dan uttered in game really count. Aside comments were misogynist ("Maybe they were both on that time of the month...") and sarcastic from time to time (""Geez man, it's like, shit, it's not like I'm ruining the flavor of it by being here, right?") which told the story of Dan's personality without actively having to tell it. Dan clearly knew he was something of a dumb jock, which is why he planned to find the smart kids on the island. That being said, Dan backed out of an alliance with people that he could see wouldn't help him get off the island, those hormonal women being an alliance he avoided. Bacon stayed true to the characterization of Dan Liu, which is something very easy to derive from on the island. I'd have prefered not to see him cast away so quickly, but Bacon did great with what she established within few posts. I should take lessons on her brievity. -Shangela